Not Everything is Contained in Books

As it is rightly expressed by Mahatma Gandhi that, “Knowledge gained through experience is far superior and many times more useful than bookish knowledge.” Gaining knowledge is a natural human desire. Books and life experiences are both primary sources of acquiring knowledge; hence, both have their own value in life. Having said that, I believe learning from experience is far more valuable, productive and practical for a successful life.

Firstly, books are considered a major source of gaining knowledge at early age particularly in schools. Knowledge from books is quite enough to grasp language, and build concepts to build a foundation for learning at later age. For example, learning of alphabets, creating words from those alphabets, later on it paves way for construction of complete sentences. However, books do not provide us any knowledge about social skills, and their challenges in practical life which primarily depends upon our language use. Therefore, experiences teach us with time and practice to learn and develop social skills in life.

Furthermore, moving on by saying that, “Experience is a teacher by itself”. Apparently speaking, books are written by experts and authorities in various fields and subjects. No doubt, their contributions are greatly accepted, but merely by going through the subject matter presented in these books does not enable us to be an expert, or an authority in that field and profession. For example, a novice doctor no matter how high his/her scores are in medical profession, but he is not eligible to perform surgeries. Each doctor has to go through mandatory internships, by working under the guidance of an expert doctor as a trainee doctor for some time. Afterwards, passing certain training and internships over a period of time, and under the presence of competent doctors he or she is allowed to perform surgery. Hence, we can say that without real time experience a person is unable to be considered as an expert professional in the field.

Finally, knowledge acquired from books is only for the sake of knowledge itself. On the contrary, experience teaches us how to apply that knowledge in real life situations. For example, reading the book about learning to drive does provide knowledge about various road signs, different driving situations, and information about the vehicle etc. However, we can only learn driving skills by applying that knowledge by sitting behind the steering wheel of the car. Similarly, learning to swim, ride a bicycle, baking, cooking all such skills are learnt with practice and experience only.

To conclude, it is correctly said, “Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”